One of the protagonists, Rey, keeps precious cargo with her as she searches for Luke: the lightsaber of Anakin Skywalker, Luke’s father. She must deliver the lightsaber to Luke in order to galvanize his joining the Resistance and to help motivate him to resume his role as a Jedi Master.

Just like how the galaxy would be doomed if Rey could not reach Luke, budding yeast cells would be doomed if a Hsp70 protein chaperone could not interact with another chaperone, Hsp90. But Hsp70 isn’t trying to deliver a lightsaber to Hsp90—instead, Hsp70 is trying to deliver “client” protein substrates, so that Hsp90 can help fold and mature these proteins.

In Star Wars, the trusty droid R2-D2 was ultimately there to help Rey find Luke with a holographic map to Luke’s location. But is our friend Saccharomyces cerevisiae just as fortunate? In fact, it just so happens that S. cerevisiae also has an “R2-D2” of its own: the co-chaperone Sti1p. Just like how R2-D2 helps Rey find Luke, Sti1p helps bring Hsp70 and Hsp90 together so that Hsp90 can receive its protein substrates and save the galaxy (or at least help fold proteins and save the yeast cell).

To give some background, Hsp90 (encoded by HSP82 and HSC82 in yeast) is a molecular chaperone that assists in the folding and maturation of specific protein substrates, or “clients”. It functions as a homodimer that undergoes ATP-regulated cycles of “opening” up to receive clients, closing, and then opening again. Many clients of Hsp90 first bind to a chaperone of the Hsp70 family, such as Ssa2p, which assists in the early stages of protein folding before interacting with Hsp90 and passing on the client.

The co-chaperone Sti1p comes into the picture by bridging Hsp70 and Hsp90 and helping them interact, so that the Hsp70-bound client can be delivered to Hsp90. Although this function of Sti1p has long been known, the exact mechanistic details have been obscure, and mutational studies have suggested that Sti1p does more than just bridge the two chaperones together.

Thanks to a recent GENETICS study by Reidy and coworkers, we now know more about how Sti1p helps save the galaxy: it not only helps Hsp90 interact with Hsp70, but also prepares Hsp90 to receive its client protein and advance in its reaction cycle.

To uncover the role of Sti1p in the Hsp90 cycle, the authors examined Hsp90 mutants that were dependent on Sti1p for viability. They mapped both previously-known and newly found Sti1-dependent mutants and found that all of the mutations clustered in just two sites. They designated the sites Sti1-dependent N and C-terminal domain proximal, or “SdN” and “SdC”, respectively.

Because previous studies showed that some Hsp90 SdN mutants don’t interact well with Hsp70, and that analogous SdC mutations in E. coli weaken interactions with Hsp90 client proteins, the authors hypothesized that Sti1p assists Hsp90 with these functions in particular.

To clarify how Sti1p and Hsp90 cooperate, the authors utilized a combination of mutational studies, pull downs with purified proteins, mass spectrometry, and more. They observed that SdN mutations in Hsp90 reduce interactions with Hsp70, while SdC mutations do not. Further, they found that the Sti1p dependency of SdN mutants could be cured through a novel suppressor mutation (E402R), which increases the interaction of Hsp90 with Hsp70. These results suggest that Hsp90 interacts with Hsp70 through the SdN region, and that Sti1p is needed to bring the two chaperones together if they aren’t able to do so well enough on their own.

Importantly, although the E402R suppressor mutation was able to “cure” SdN mutants of their Sti1p dependency, it was unable to do so in SdC mutants. This indicated that SdC mutants are defective in a function that Sti1p assists with, but one that’s separate from having Hsp70 interact with Hsp90.

To uncover why SdC mutants depend upon Sti1p for viability, the authors investigated suppressor mutations. The authors isolated multiple SdC suppressors and also found that a previously characterized mutation, A107N, is able to ameliorate the effects of SdC mutations. Previous studies on A107N show that this mutation promotes closure of the open-state Hsp90 heterodimer, which is an important step of the Hsp90 reaction cycle. The authors found that other SdC suppressor mutations were consistent with A107N and could relieve the Sti1p dependence of SdC but not SdN mutants. These results indicate that Sti1p not only promotes Hsp90-Hsp70 interaction, but also has an additional function in promoting Hsp90 heterodimer closure and progression of the Hsp90 cycle.

So it turns out that Sti1p is like R2-D2 in more ways than one. In its first role, Sti1p helps Hsp70 and Hsp90 interact, much like how R2-D2 helps Rey find Luke in The Force Awakens. In its second role, Sti1p helps Hsp90 accept its substrates, progress through its reaction cycle, and perform its function. This is similar to what R2-D2 does in Star Wars: The Last Jedi. In the movie, Luke initially shows reluctance to resume his role as a Jedi Master and help save the galaxy, despite being found by Rey. But thankfully, R2-D2 was there to motivate Luke to return to his heroic duties, much like how Sti1p is there to “motivate” Hsp90 to capture client proteins and do its job.

Thanks to the efforts of Reidy and coworkers, how Sti1p helps save the galaxy yeast cell is that much clearer. Not only does Sti1p help Hsp70 interact with Hsp90 and deliver lightsabers client proteins, but it also helps Hsp90 do its job as a Jedi Master chaperone by promoting progression of the Hsp90 reaction cycle!